Friday, May 09, 2008

The Colorado Avalanche Hockey Club announced today that Joel Quenneville will not return to coach the team next season.

“After meeting with Joel, we mutually agreed that the best decision for both parties involved is to go separate ways,” said Avalanche Executive Vice President & General Manager Francois Giguere. “On behalf of the organization, I want to thank Joel for his years of service and wish him the best in his coaching career.”

>> team release

It had been rumoured since the team was swept in Round 2 that this was a possibility. The Avalanche had a ton of injury problems this season, and you really can't pin their loss to Detroit on coaching.

This is a franchise in need of some sort of a rebuild, from the goal out.

Colorado becomes the fifth team with a coaching vacancy; Florida, Atlanta, Ottawa and Toronto also need coaches this off-season. It's also expected San Jose will have an opening in the near future.

I think we're going to see a few new faces join the NHL coaching fraternity next season. (And Pat Quinn's chances to get back in the league are looking better by the day.)

Quenneville's a good coach, and I think he'll catch on with one of those teams. His regular season record of 438-283-77-41 with St. Louis and Colorado speaks for itself, but his playoff record of 42-45 needs work..

I was surprised the Avalanche hired Q after his inexplicable collapse as coach of team Canada in 2004.

Letting Q go has less to do with losing to Detroit. Rumblings around town here have it that there's some possible fued with management, some possible rumblings with Andrew Brunnette and I don't think he's the only irked player in the room. The Avs run a really leakproof organization both in management and in the lockeroom so we may never know the real reasons. We can only speculate.

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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